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Vermilion County Two Memo Update – Donahue Responds…

You might remember our October 14, 2013 article on the Two (False) Memos in which we talked about the two memos that Mr. Donahue referenced during a county board meeting.

These memos basically accused members of the public of harrassing, bullying, and speaking in a “threatening tone” during the public session part of their county board meetings. After receiving copies of those memos, I requested anything that would document or substantiate the claims set forth in the memos.

The aswers for documents to substantiate the allegations leveled in the memo were troubling to say the least. As for the majority of the memo, Mr. Donahue stated: “since the camera system was not in place until the last Board meeting, there is no document that would be responsive to your request”. Itn’t that nice, level accusations that cannot be supported. He went on to state that there was no document stating who authored the memo (that he handed out and referenced in a meeting). Another “clever” tactic to use – level accusations in an unsigned memo, then refuse to state who wrote the memo. Finally, as to one part of the memo, he included a complaint form from the Vermilion County Sheriff’s Department on an incident where Mr. Michael T. Marron, a county board member, filed a complaint against a citizen that has spoken out during meetings in the past. This complaint was obviously frivolous, will not be prosecuted, and in my opinion was simply a tactic used to try and stifle public discourse during meetings. Mr. Marron, you should be ashamed to show your face anywhere after filing that report. You know nothing of the sort happened, and yet you profess to be conservative. A public official should fight for the rights of the citizens, not make up allegations in an attempt to shut them up.

A different request I made was for information related to the “outside counsel” he had been touting when talking about the windfarm issues. As far as this request is concerned, the outside counsel did not invoice the county for any services rendered, no payments have been tendered, and there is no contract with this “outside counsel”. There is also no court order naming said counsel as “special prosecutor” – this is typically used in order for the county to legally hire an attorney for when the State’s Attorney’s office has a conflict or is not conversant with the subject matter. This point is moot since no funds were used to pay this outside counsel.

The name of the “outside counsel” is Michael W. Condon, and he is employed by Hervas, Condon, & Bersani P.C. out of Itasca, Illinois., who basically said that the 2009 Ordinance was OK, but that it could not be amended to futher restrict windturbines without risking a lawsuit. I don’t buy that arguement, and apparently neither did you since nothing was invoiced for this legal advice.